AI Writing Apps: Are they Useful?

   

 By now, you've probably seen apps where Artificial Intelligence(AI) can write entire blog posts for you. Although I'm normally against these sort of things, (as I believe they remove writing's necessary human element), I decided to purchase a few from AppSumo to try them out. Here are my opinions on their usefulness. 

    For starters, the way they work is rather simple. You type in a keyword or phrase, or even a topic, and the app sends crawler robots to scan the web for similar articles and relevant statistics. Then the app takes this new information and allows you to choose how you want to use it. 

    For instance, let's say you're writing a blog post about the best dog toys on the market. You've already finished the blog post, so now you're looking for a proper title that can garner some clicks. You click on something like "Blog Headlines" or "Article Headlines" and find a box that reads: "Blog topic" or "What's your article about?" 

   From there, you simply fill in the box with a few details about your blog post and push the enter key. Voila! You see a list of results, all with potential headlines for your article.

    When it comes to things like headline ideas or blog outlines, they can be quite useful. Especially if you're new to writing, blogging, or writing specifically for SEO purposes. If anything, they provide you with a way to structure your posts, while you retain control of the actual writing process.

    As for the writing itself, I definitely recommend against using the AI to write your articles for you. For one, the AI programs I used don't always change the results enough to prevent plagiarism issues from appearing. So, if you just copy and paste what the AI writes, you might find yourself in trouble down the road. 

    Secondly, the writing is stiff, robotic, and is void of human uniqueness. This is crucial when you're trying to build an audience based around your brand, or a unique voice that can resonate with new consumers. This could definitely change in the future, since AI evolves at a such a rapid rate, but from what I've seen, we're a long way off. (Plus, each writer will always have their own specific voice. Unless you're pumping out content for the sake of it, you can't really get your voice across with AI involved.)

    Lastly, using AI for sales copy is almost universally a bad idea, unless the space is blank and you're not comfortable filling it in. This is because, as a human, you can research the individuals you're selling to in forums, in person, on review pages, and on social media. Building customer profiles takes conscious effort. Otherwise you might end up selling to uninterested consumers. As for the AI, the robots scan similar websites for their sales copy, then adapts it to yours. 

    Now, it's possible you think that sounds useful. But what if your competitor's sales copy isn't very good? Wouldn't you rather fill in the blanks using your own research and knowledge of marketing psychology? Again, maybe some day the AI will be able to do this for us. Until then, please consider passing on using writing apps to create your sales copy. You'll be fine without it. 

    Overall, I'd say that AI writing apps have a use when it comes to solid headlines and blog outlines. If you're in need of one, or both, of those, then you'll find a use for them. As for the writing itself, you're better off writing the articles yourselves. 

    Side note: If you're really not comfortable writing articles yourself, you can have the AI write for you, give you statistics that you can verify, then reproduce it in your own voice. Other than that, just give it your best shot. You'll improve over time.

    Other than that, I know that some people might disagree with me on these programs. That's great! Maybe you've found some higher end apps that do a fantastic job for you. These were, again, apps I purchased off AppSumo, and thus, the only time I've used them. 

    If you'd like to leave feedback, or an opinion of your own, feel free to do so in the comments down below. Otherwise, thank you for reading!

    P.S. If you're a small business searching for digital marketing help, let us know how we can help.